The figure for the South West is £8,219 and, shockingly, a huge swathe of England – the South East, East Midlands and East of England – fare even worse.

How has this bias against the English come about? As devolution proceeds apace, the governments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast have become increasingly confident, assertive and successful. In reaction the British political establishment is more than willing to pander to their every demand in an attempt to prevent the UK from drifting apart.

Meanwhile MPs elected in England, with no national parliament of their own, enter Westminster to become lost in a fog of Britishness and are unwilling or unable to obtain the rights and opportunities for their constituents that their counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have for theirs.

Little wonder that the chairman of the House of Commons’ Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee said “England is the last country in the Empire – still ruled, like some untrusted colonial backwater, from Whitehall.”

Sadly, he is right and nothing will change until England has its own independent government.